Enhancing Customer Satisfaction in E-commerce Returns: A Comparative Analysis of Reverse Logistics in Thai and Chinese Customers

The burgeoning growth of e-commerce necessitates efficient sales processes to ensure customer satisfaction and sustainable business development. While it offers convenience, the inability to physically inspect products in pre-purchase stage presents challenges upon parcel arrival such as damaged, non-standard, or expired products, leading to return process. Therefore, a robust return policy, underpinned by a reliable reverse logistics system, is crucial. Reverse logistics, managing the return flow of products from customers back to manufacturers, fosters customer satisfaction. The reverse logistics in e-commerce consists of 5 main criteria and twelve sub-criteria. The main criteria are communication and information, return operation, service and convenience, cost, parcel size and value of product. To undertake the issue, this paper aims to study the importance of the factors of reverse logistics in e-commerce by using Best-Worst Method (BWM), a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). The study evaluates 20 Thai and 20 Chinese students to compare the most and least impactful criteria. Results indicate that best criteria of a Chinese students are parcel size and value of product which is 0.2258 The second-best criterion is service and convenience which is 0.2080 and the worst criteria is communication and information response to customers which is 0.1788. For Thai students, the best criteria are parcel size and value of product and weight which is 0.2410. The second best is the cost customer’s perspective which is 0.1993 and the worst criteria is communication and information response to customers which is 0.1851.